The present invention relates to an electronic cash register and, more particularly, to one in which, when number of the digits of input data representing the price of a merchandise item sold is larger than a predetermined one, prohibition of the registration of such data is temporarily released, permitting such data to be registered.
Generally, an electronic cash register (hereinafter often referred to merely as ECR) has placed a limit on the digit number of the input data representing the price of a merchandise item. For example, if the maximum digit number of the input data permitted to be registered into the ECR is six digits, the digit number to be registered through one registration operation is sometimes limited to three digits. In this specification, the term "registration" means that the input data is temporarily loaded into an entry memory to be described later and, through depression of a department key, for example, of the function keys on the keyboard, the input data loaded are printed on the receipt paper while at the same time they are added to the total in the totalizer. When two merchandise items each having the price of three digits are successively registered, if a given key operation, e.g. depression of a department key, is missed between the registration operation of the merchandise price, a single merchandise item with six digits is apparently registered. It is for this reason that the digit number of the input data to be registered into the ECR is limited. Accordingly, if about 95% of all the merchandise to be treated have prices with the digit number less than three digits, the ECR is preset to have three digits as the maximum digit number of the price for registration. The presetting may previously be made to a memory section of the ECR. When a price with more than three digits is registered, an operator must divide the price into ones each having digits equal to or less than three digits and repeat the ordinary registration operations for the respective divided ones. Such a registration operation is troublesome, thus tending to give rise to errors. Additionally, since the number of the registration operations is not coincident with that of the merchandise items sold, the customer is sometimes perplexed.
Accordingly, the primary object of the present invention is to provide an electronic cash register permitting the registration of input data with more than a predetermined number of digits, with provision of means for temporarily releasing the registration prohibition of the input data with such a number of digits.